Grocery Employee Shot After Coming to Woman's Rescue

Gunman remains at large

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WASHINGTON -- A Good Samaritan is recovering from a gunshot wound he suffered while trying to help a woman being robbed inside his store Saturday.

The woman had just paid for a purchase with a $100 bill at Price's Grocery on Rock Creek Church Road in the Fort Totten-area when someone tried to take her change, police said.

Good Samaritan Recovering After Shooting in Store

A store clerk springs into action to help a woman being robbed in his store. (Published Monday, Oct. 12, 2009)

"I never thought I'd be the one," said Clinton Price Jr. from his hospital bed Monday. "I never thought I'd get shot."

At about 3 p.m., the woman paid for about $10 worth of groceries with the $100 bill, and a man in the store tried to grab the change, slamming the woman into the bullet-proof glass that protects the clerks.

"I was shocked," Price Jr. said. "I had to go save her. I though he was going to kill her."

Price went to the woman's aide and knocked the man to the ground, but the man had a gun.

"I thought we had him restrained, so I turned away," Price said. "I thought the fight was over. We had already beat him up. Then he pulled out a gun and shot me."

The gunman allegedly pointed the gun at Price's father, who runs the store opened in 1967 by Price's grandfather with the help of his son. The gun jammed, and the victim's father was able to get back behind the bullet-proof glass.

"My son was fantastically courageous," said Price's mother, Clinton Price. "He was very unselfish at the time and he gave all that he could and he almost gave his life, and there's nothing more I can say about that."

The gunman allegedly stole a car, crashed it on 16th Street in Northwest and continued his escape on foot.